Charles Harris author ~

Best-selling author and martial arts black-belt

Charles Harris is a best-selling author, award-winning writer-director, journalist, martial arts black belt. Semi-finalist: Author Nation Story Wars 2024. Director of the Society of Authors.

Harris likes to give his thrillers a political edge and to go undercover to research them. He has secretly found his way into tabloid newsrooms, local government offices, police stations and even a police cell.

For the books he’s currently writing, he’s spent time covertly with SAS veterans, journalists researching high-profile assassinations and charity workers dealing with international corruption. He goes to great lengths to get the right details, to the point of falling off a mountain in the Caribbean.

Charles’s first novel, the literary political thriller The Breaking of Liam Glass was an Amazon bestseller and double award-nominee.

His second, Room 15 (published by Bloodhound Books) is a psychological mystery thriller about a police detective with amnesia. It too immediately became an Amazon bestseller.

His film work includes the rite-of-passage movie Paradise Grove, which won Best New Director in Palm Springs. His BBC2 satirical documentary Sex, Drugs and Dinner, with Alexei Sayle won One World’s Best Network Programme of the Year. He co-founded the first screenwriters’ workshop in the world, London Screenwriters’ Workshop, now Euroscript. And is a 6th Dan black-belt in Aikido.

As a non-fiction author, his books Teach Yourself: Complete Screenwriting Course and Jaws in Space: Powerful Pitching for Film and TV are Amazon best-sellers and recommended reading on MA courses.

He has spoken on BBC TV and radio, and written and directed for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, as well as freelance journalism for national and local newspapers and magazines.

He’s also a passionate Green and an elected member of the Green Party’s national Campaigns Committee. He would love to help save the human race, if it actually wants to be saved (which he sometimes doubts).

He has a wife and a cat, who live with him in London, and two sons, who don’t.

Join his mailing list for free articles and advice on writing and reviews of books and films.

“A natural story-teller” – Ian St James Awards

Charles Harris – Longer CV

Best-selling author Charles Harris loves telling stories in all media and helping others to tell theirs. His is a distinctive voice, mixing humour, suspense, memorable characters and a very personal style.

When not writing he spends his time bouncing people on their heads in the Aikido dojo. And banging on about how it might be a good idea to save the human race.

Harris likes to give his thrillers a political edge and to go undercover to research them. He has secretly found his way into tabloid newsrooms, local government offices, police stations and even a police cell.

For the books he’s currently writing, he’s spent time covertly with SAS veterans, journalists researching high-profile assassinations and charity workers dealing with international corruption. He goes to great lengths to get the right details, to the point of falling off a mountain in the Caribbean.

Before becoming a screenwriter and film director he studied law and then English at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He left Cambridge to go to the London Film School, which promptly folded. He then fell in love with journalism, working as an assistant in BBC News on the Today Programme, World at One, PM and The World Tonight.

He has worked as a freelance writer for a number of national and local newspapers and magazines. On the other side of the fence, he has managed press and media coverage for businesses and organisations such as the Green Party of England and Wales.

At the same time, he began studying Zen and the martial arts. First practising Tai Chi, he moved on to Aikido, in which he has risen to 6th Dan black belt.

His first professional TV film, the arts documentary Marc Chagall: The Colours of Passion, won awards across the world. He moved from documentary to drama with eight episodes of the Channel 4 soap, Brookside.

His first movie script – a conspiracy thriller – took many years to complete. But at the end of it he’d discovered an unexpected passion for writing. That first script eventually attracted a major Hollywood agency.

Of his theatre work, he has directed for Pentameters in Hampstead, London’s first pub theatre, as well as the parody The Master of Two Servants for Cameo Players, and September Rock – an impromptu mini rock festival for New End.

Recently, he directed Silent Voices, a dramatised documentary about the effects of domestic violence.

Charles Harris author

As a non-fiction author, he debuted with Police Slang. This was followed by Teach Yourself: Complete Screenwriting Course and Jaws in Space: Powerful Pitching for Film and TV. Both featured on Amazon’s bestseller lists. They are recommended reading on MA courses.

In 2017, Marble City published his first novel, the political thriller The Breaking of Liam Glass. This immediately hit the Amazon bestseller lists with its dark expose of sleaze in tabloid journalism. It subsequently won nominations for a Wishing Shelf Literary Award and an Eyelands International Literary Award. Blue Coast Publishing currently publish the second edition.

He has since written the crime thriller Room 15, (Bloodhound Books, 2020) centring on a police detective with amnesia. It too became an Amazon bestseller.

Previously, Harris has had short stories nominated for awards, written freelance articles for national and local newspapers and magazines and appeared on BBC1, BBC Radio 4 and local radio. His popular short story collection The Cupboard is exclusively available to subscribers to his mailing list.

In his spare time, he is learning Japanese, practises NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and runs an Aikido club in North West London. He has a wife and a cat, who live with him in London, UK, and two sons, who don’t.

If you want to make contact, ask a question, invite him to make an appearance, join his mailing list or even learn Aikido, click here.

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